alone together
by malfoymannor
Summary: The world is covered in a blanket of black and white. Except for those who are lucky enough to have met their soulmates. AU where Harry meets his soulmates, and Hermione and Ron are it. They're his home.


_I don't know where you're going but do you got room for one more troubled soul?_

**alone together**

From the time that someone is little, all they hear about is how you only ever see colors if you meet your soulmate. Ever since Harry was young, he always wondered if he'd ever meet his soulmate. A soulmate wasn't necessarily someone who you would be romantic with, although it was certainly possible. Most of the stories he had heard, before his life was thrown into a whirlwind of change from the form of a half-giant knocking down the door of the hut the Dursley's were making him stay in, were about people meeting their soulmates and how they would become inseparable, like brother and sister. There were some people, the rare kind of soulmates, that would become partners, that they would grow up and grow old together. Everyone said that with time, as people got to know each other, the colors would grow as the bond grew. Finding out he was a wizard was life changing, but he didn't just find out about who he was, he was finding out things about his parents that made him question everything he ever knew.

One of the things he always wondered about was if his parents had been soulmates. If they had seen the colors of the world when they had met each other. All Harry could see were the different shades of black and white, boring and monotonous as the Dursley's. He associated all those colors with them; bleak, without the colors of friendship, love, and caring. One of the things Harry had wondered for the longest time, before he knew about the color sheets, was how people knew which colors were associated with which words. But when he looked at it, all he saw was black and white. The color he saw next to purple was a dark gray, and the color he saw next to pink was a light gray, close to white.

He couldn't help feel disappointment every time he met someone knew. Would this person be the one? Would this be the day he finally saw all the colors of the world?

The day he left for Platform 9 ¾ was the best day of his life, looking back onto it now. But at the time, it was just another version of the hell that he had been forced into when his parents died. If his parents had lived, all of this would've been normal. He would've been normal, not some infamous child wizard. He wasn't special, he was just Harry.

The last thing on his mind was meeting his soulmate, or meeting anyone really. So when Uncle Vernon dumped him at Kings Cross Station and said, _"Have a good term,_" the finality of all of this hit him.

Walking through Kings Cross, looking like a complete outsider with his trunk and owl in tow, made him skeptical of all of this, that maybe it was all just some big practical joke. But then he saw another family, all of them dragging similar trunks along with a various number of family members trailing behind them. "_Now, what's the platform number?" said the boys' mother. "Nine and three-quarters!" piped a small girl, also red-headed, who was holding her hand._

He had no idea what was happening. The older of the boy and the twins, they just disappeared into the wall. _Magic._ He knew that this was his opportunity to get help.

_"Excuse me," Harry said to the woman. "Hello, dear," she said. "First time at Hogwarts? Ron's new, too."  
_

Something strange happened at that moment when he smiled at Ron, his vision flickered and for a moment he thought as though he saw something. But he just blinked it away and kept going. He and Ron got through the barrier and then went separate ways. That family seemed so alive, so fully of love and joy, the exact opposite of how Harry had grown up

He couldn't help but be in awe of everything around him. The beautiful silky train, billows of smoke rising from it as he made his way onto the train.

Not knowing anyone here was only one of the things that terrified him. The most terrifying thing was the fast that he was a _wizard. _Doing magic was only something that regular kids, "muggles" as they're called, dreamed of. He had a wand, spell books, the works.

_"Anyone sitting there?" he asked, pointing at the seat opposite Harry._

__The flickering started again and his world started fading from black and white, to barely there colors. Harry didn't know how this could be possible. This boy in front of him that he had just met was his soulmate; they were destined to be best friends? They seemed as though they were nothing alike. He had everything that Harry wanted, a big family, brothers and sisters, a mother who loved him. Harry was just an unloved orphan, how could they be friends?

And then a tornado of a girl came in, with bushy hair and a lot of words. _"I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?"_

And that's when the rest of the colors started to bleed through. He wished he had known what they were now.

Harry was one of those kinds of kids who saw in black and white, but dreamed of color, so later that night he pulled out the color chart he had always kept at the bottom of his bag. He uncrumpled it and looked at it. Pink, that had been the color of Ron's hair that he saw. He assumed that Ron's hair hadn't actually been pink, but the beginnings of the colors were supposed to be washed out versions of the real colors. He looked into the mirror. It was the first time that he had seen himself in color. His hair was black, his skin pale, but his eyes were green. He had remembered Mr. Ollivander saying, _"You have your mother's eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wand." _His mother had green eyes, just like his own that were looking back at him now.

Over the years, the colors would get stronger and weaker as they all grew closer, drew apart. He was never sure if Ron and Hermione could see the colors as well, Harry never brought it up. He didn't care because he finally had the family he had ever wanted. They were his home, the people who cared about him the most in the world.

_"The fierce new sun dazzled the windows as they thundered toward him, and the first to reach him were Ron and Hermione, and it was their arms that were wrapped around him, their incomprehensible shouts that deafened him." _

That was when his world burst into true color. The brilliant red of Ron's hair, the deep brown of Hermione's. The yellow of the sun, the gray and red of the flaming rubble that was Hogwarts. This was something that was unexpected and privately comforting to him. He didn't know what he should be feeling now, but he knew that whatever it was, Hermione and Ron would always be there for him. He had just defeated Voldemort and things could finally start to get better.

_"Happiness would come, Harry thought, but at the moment it was muffled by exhaustion, and the pain of losing Fred and Lupin and Tonks pierced him like a physical wound every few steps." _This was everything they had worked for, it was all finally behind them. The rest of their life began now.

The five Potter's made their way through the crowd of eager young Hogwarts students, ready for another year of school. Harry remembered when that had been him, Ron, and Hermione eager to start their years at school. What they hadn't known was that the friendship they forged would be something that carried them throughout the entirety of their school careers. They weren't ordinary friends, they were all soulmates, linked to each other in a way that no one else could be. Ron and Hermione eventually got married, they had children together, and they were all closer than ever. Raising their children together, all alive, was more than Harry could've ever expected for that little orphan boy that lived in a cupboard under the stairs.

_"If you're not in Gryffindor, we'll disinherit you," said Ron, "but no pressure."_

_"Ron!"_


End file.
